octopus

Using mechanics based on everyone's favorite cephalopods (no, not cuttlefish, you weirdo), scientists from the University of Southampton, MIT, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology have developed what I am now dubbing the Hella Fast OctoBot, because why the heck not.

Ze Frank is still not sure where the octopus' butt is.

Ze Frank is back with some very interesting facts about our scary ink farting friends in the deep blue sea. The octopus is so intelligent that even when severed its tentacles continue to work, which is highly impressive and highly creepy.

I'm a silly human for wanting to build them a dollhouse aquarium, but I do, guys. I do.

Smaller than a LEGO minifig! Overpowered by a grain of rice! A bunch of Caribbean pygmy octopi hatched last week at The Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, and now we need new frames of reference for tininess.

Things We Saw Today

Check out this amazingly detailed octopus chandelier which includes detachable, light-up tentacles. The original from Mason's Creations has already sold but if you've got $18,000 to spare you can order one for yourself. Or for The Mary Sue offices.
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Aww. "Mountain." You're adorable, England.

You know how when you think of an octopus, you generally imagine it zooming around in the water? That's probably what the volunteers who attended the Scafell Pike Litter Pick in Cumbria, England thought, too -- until they came across one near the summit of the mountain. Huh. I guess that's a thing that can happen.

This robot octopus is learning to swim by trying out a bunch of different strokes and finding out what works best. At this rate, it will be terrifying you in the pool in no time.

Octopi are great swimmers, but they're pretty weird about how they do it. The cephalopods get around via a strange swimming technique known as sculling, which uses all eight of their rubbery legs. Unfortunately for researchers working to recreate this movement in robots, octopi around the world have failed to leave thorough notes on just how sculling works. That means a European team working to build a robotic octopus is trying to recreate the movement from scratch, with...oh, let's call it varying degrees of success.

It Belongs in a Museum!

You may be one of those people who already find tentacles beautiful but artist Adam Wallacavage makes them even more so. And suitable for home use! Take a look as some of the gorgeous chandeliers he's created using the creepy-crawly bits (you can also see more on his blog).
(via io9)
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When we think of robots, we tend to anthropomorphize a bit. Years of TV and movies have gotten us used to thinking of the machines as mechanical versions of us. The fact is, though, the next generation of robots will come in a staggering variety of shapes and sizes, many of them -- or at least come of their traits -- inspired by the animal kingdom, like DARPA's AlphaDog or this inflatable "soft robot" from Harvard. Researchers are hard at work trying to repurpose animal parts that could be useful to new robots, and the latest entries in that field are these 3D printed robotic suckers, which mimic the suctioning ability of a squid or octopus, and could help tomorrow's robots grip objects, move around, and of course one day restrain human prisoners. Until that day, though, they will be pretty cool!
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From Nat Geo Wild, we have a front seat view of the slow, methodical process a sea lion goes through to kill and eat an octopus. She dismantles all of its tentacles one by one so it can't flee or fight back, then partakes in the meal. Yeah, she's still pretty cute, as sea lions tend to be, regardless of the whole psychotic murderer thing.